Rainbow Six

CHAPTER 33

Chavez did his best not to stumble off the aircraft, somewhat amazed that the cabin crew looked so chipper. Well, they had practice, and maybe they'd adapted to jet lag better than he ever had. Like every other civilian he saw, he snacked his lips to deal with the sour taste and squinted his eyes and headed for the door with the eagerness of a man being released from a maximum security prison. Maybe traveling great distances by ship wasn't so bad after all.

"Major Chavez?" a voice asked in an Australian accent.

"Yeah?" Chavez managed to say, looking at the guy in civilian clothes.

"G'day, I'm Leftenant Colonel Frank Wilkerson, Australian Special Air Service." He held out his hand.

"Howdy." Chavez managed to grab the hand and shake it. "These are my men, Sergeants Johnston, Pierce, Tomlinson, and Special Agent Tim Noonan of the FBI, he's our technical support." More handshakes were exchanged all around. "Welcome to Australia, gentlemen. Follow me, if you please." The colonel waved for them to follow.

It took fifteen minutes to collect all the gear. That included a half dozen large mil-spec plastic containers that were loaded into a minibus. Ten minutes later, they were at the airport grounds and heading for Motorway 64 for the trip into Sydney.

"So, how was the flight?" Colonel Wilkerson asked, turning in his front seat to look at them.

"Long," Chavez said, looking around. The sun was rising - it was just short of 6:00 A.M. - while the arriving rainbow troopers were all wondering if it was actually supposed to be setting according to their body clocks. They all hoped a shower and some coffee would help.

"Pig of a flight, all the way out from London," the colonel sympathized.

"That it is." Chavez agreed for his men.

"When do the games start?" Mike Pierce asked.

"Tomorrow," Wilkerson replied. "We've got most of the athletes settled into their quarters, and our security teams are fully manned and trained up. We expect no difficulties at all. The intelligence threat board is quite blank. The people we have watching the airport report nothing, and we have photos and descriptions of all known international terrorists. Not as many as there used to be, largely thanks to your group," the SAS colonel added, with a friendly, professional smile.

"Yeah, well, we try to do our part, Colonel," George Tomlinson observed, while rubbing his face.

"The chaps who attacked you directly, they' were IRA, as the media said?"

"Yeah," Chavez answered. "Splinter group. But they were well briefed. Somebody gave them primo intelligence information. They had their civilian targets identified by name and occupation-that included my wife and mother-in-law, and-"

"I hadn't heard that, "the Aussie said, with wide-open eyes.

"Well, it wasn't fun. And we lost two people killed, and four wounded, including Peter Covington. He's my counterpart, commanding Team-1," Ding explained. "Like I said, wasn't fun. Tim here turned out to have saved the day," he went on, pointing at Noonan.

"How so?" Wilkerson asked the FBI agent, who looked slightly embarrassed.

"I have a system for shutting down cellular phone communications. Turns out the bad guys were using them to coordinate their movements," the FBI agent explained. "We denied them that ability, and it interfered with their plans. Then Ding and the rest of the guys came in and messed them up some more. We were very, very lucky. Colonel."

"So, you're FBI. You know Gus Werner, I expect?"

"Oh, yeah. Gus and I go back a ways. He's the new AD for terrorism-new division the Bureau's set up. You've been to Quantico, I suppose."

"Just a few months ago, in fact, exercising with your Hostage Rescue Team and Colonel Byron's Delta group. Good lads. all. of them." The driver turned off the interstate-type highway, taking an exit that seemed to head into downtown Sydney. Traffic was light. It was still too early for people to be very active, aside from milkmen and paperboys. The minibus pulled up to an upscale hotel, whose bell staff was awake, even at this ungodly hour.

"We have an arrangement with this one," Wilkerson explained. "The Global Security people are here, too."

"Who?" Ding asked.

"Global Security, they have the consulting contract. Mr. Noonan, you probably know their chief, Bill Henriksen."

"Bill the tree-hugger?" Noonan managed a strangled laugh. "Oh, yeah, I know him."

"Tree-hugger?"

"Colonel, Bill was a senior guy in Hostage Rescue a few years ago. Competent guy, but he's one of those nutty environmentalist types. Hugs trees and bunny rabbits. Worries about the ozone layer, all that crap," Noonan explained.

"I didn't know that about him. We do worry about the o/one down here, you know. One must use sunblock on the beaches and such. Might be serious in a few years, so they say."

"Maybe so," Tim allowed with a yawn. "I'm not a surfer."

The door was pulled open by a hotel employee and the men stumbled out. Colonel Wilkerson must have called ahead, Ding thought a minute later, as they were fast-tracked to their rooms nice ones-for wake-up showers, followed by big breakfasts with lots of coffee. As dreadful as the jet lag was, the best way for them to handle it was to gut their way through the first day, try to get a decent night's sleep, and so synchronize themselves in a single day. At least that was the theory, Ding thought, toweling off in front of the bathroom mirror and seeing that he looked almost as messed up as he felt. Soon after that, wearing casual clothes, he showed up in the hotel coffee shop.

"You know, Colonel, if somebody made a narcotic that worked on jet lag, he'd die richer 'n hell."

"Quite. I've been through it as well, Major."

"Call me Ding. My given name's Domingo, but I go by Ding."

"What's your background?" Wilkerson asked.

"Started off as an infantryman, but then into CIA, and now this. I don't know about this simulated-major stuff. I'm Team-2 commander for Rainbow, and I guess that'll have to do."

"You Rainbow chaps have been busy."

"That's a fact, Colonel," Ding agreed, shaking his head as the waiter came with a pot of coffee. Ding wondered if anyone had the Army type of coffee, the sort with triple the usual amount of caffeine. It would have come in handy right now. That and a nice morning workout might have helped a lot. In addition to the fatigue, his body was rebelling against the full day of confinement on the 747. The damned airplane was big enough for a few laps, but somehow the designers had left out the running track. Then came the slightly guilty feeling for the poor bastards who'd made the hop in tourist. They must really be suffering, Ding was sure. Well, at least it had been quick. A ship would have taken a whole month of palatial comfort, lots of exercise opportunities, and good food. Life was full of trade-offs, wasn't it?

"You were in on the Worldpark job?"

"Yeah." Ding nodded. "My team did the assault on the castle. I was a hot hundred feet away when that bastard killed the little girl. That really wasn't fun, Colonel."

"Frank."

"Thanks. Yeah, Frank, that was pretty damned bad. But we got that bastard-which is to say, Homer Johnston did. He's one of my long rifles."

"From the TV coverage we saw, that wasn't a particularly good shot."

"Homer wanted to make a little statement," Chavez explained, with a raised eyebrow. "He won't be doing it again."

Wilkerson figured that one out instantly. "Oh, yes, quite. Any children, Ding?"

"Just became a father a few days ago. A son."

"Congratulations. We'll have to have a beer for that, later today perhaps."

"Frank, one beer and you might just have to carry my ass back here." Dine yawned, and felt embarrassment at the state of his body right then and there. "Anyway, why did you want us down here? Everybody says you guys are pretty good."

"Never hurts to get a second opinion, Ding. My lads are well trained, but we haven't had all that much practical experience. And we need some new hardware. Those new radios that E-Systems make, and that Global Security got for us, they're bloody marvelous. What other magic tools might you have?"

"Noonan's got something that'll knock your eyes out. Frank. I hardly believe it myself, but I don't think it'll be worth a damn down here. Too many people around. But you'll find it interesting. I promise you that."

"What's that?"

"Tim calls it the `Tricorder' - you know the gadget Mr. Spock used all the time in Star Trek. It finds people like radar finds airplanes."

"How's it do that?"

"He'll tell you. Something about the electrical field around a human heart."

"I've never heard of that."

"It's new," Chavez explained. "Little company in the States called DKL, I think. That little fucker is magic, the way it works. Little Willie at Fort Bragg's in love with it."

"Colonel Byron?"

"He's the man. You said you've worked with him recently?"

"Oh, yes, splendid chap."

Chavez had a chuckle at that one. "He doesn't like Rainbow all that much. We stole some of his best people, you see."

"And gave them practical work to do."

"True," Chavez agreed, sipping his coffee. The rest of the team appeared then, dressed as their commander was, in semi-military casual clothes. Sauntering into the coffee shop, they spotted their boss and came over.

It was about four in the afternoon in Kansas. The morning ride had left Popov sore in unusual places. His hips especially protested the way they'd been used earlier in the day, his upper legs held out at an unusual angle. But it was a pleasant memory for all that.

There was nothing for Popov to do here. He had no assigned work, and by lunch he'd run out of things he could conveniently explore. That left television as a diversion, but TV was not one of his favorite things. A bright man. lie was easily bored, and he hated boredom. CNN kept repeating the same stories on the Olympics, and while he'd always enjoyed watching that international competition, it hadn't started yet. So, he wandered the corridors of the hotel, and looked out the huge window-wall at the surrounding countryside. Another ride tomorrow morning. lie thought, at least it got him outside into pleasant surroundings. After over an hour's wandering, he headed clown to the cafeteria.

"Oh, hello, Dmitriy," Kirk Maclean said, just ahead of him in the line. Maclean wasn't a vegan either, the Russian saw. His plate had a large slice of ham on it. Popov remarked on that.

"Like I said this morning, we're not designed to be vegetarians," Maclean pointed out with a grin.

"How do you know that is true?"

"Teeth mainly," Maclean replied. Herbivores chew grass and stuff, and there's a lot of dirt and grit in that kind of food, and that wears the teeth down like sandpaper. So they need teeth with very thick enamel so they won't wear out in a few years. The enamel on human teeth is a lot thinner than what you find on a cow. So either we're adapted to washing the dirt off our food first, or we're designed to cat meat for most of our protein intake. I don't think we adapted that fast to running water in the kitchen, y 'know?" Kirk asked with a grin. The two men headed off to the same table. "What do you do for John?" he asked after they'd sat down.

"Dr. Brightling, you mean?"

"Yeah, you said you work directly for him."

"I used to be KGB." Might as well try it on him, too.

"Oh, you spy for us, then?" Maclean asked, cutting up his ham slice.

Popov shook his head. "Not exactly. I established contact with people in whom Dr. Brightling had interest and asked them to perform certain functions which he wished them to do."

"Oh? For what?" Maclean asked.

"I am not sure that I am allowed to say."

"Secret stuff, eh? Well, there's a lot of that here, man. Have you been briefed in on the Project?"

"Not exactly. Perhaps I am part of it, but I haven't been told exactly what the purpose of all this is. Do you know?"

"Oh, sure. I've been in it almost from the beginning. It's really something, man. It's got some real nasty parts, but," he added with a cold look in his eyes, "you don't make an omelet without breaking some eggs, right?"

Lenin said that, Popov remembered. In the 1920s, when asked about the destructive violence being done in the name of Soviet Revolution. The observation had become famous, especially in KGB, when occasionally someone objected to particularly cruel field operations-like what Popov had done, interfacing with terrorists, who typically acted in the most grossly inhuman manner and… recently, under his guidance. But what sort of omelet was this man helping to make?

"We're gonna change the world, Dmitriy," Maclean said.

"How so, Kirk?"

"Wait and see, man. Remember how it was this morning out riding?"

"Yes, it was very pleasant."

"Imagine the whole world like that" was as far as Maclean was willing to go.

"But how would you make that happen… where would all the farmers go?" Popov asked, truly puzzled.

"Just think of 'em as eggs, man," Maclean answered, with a smile, and Dmitriy's blood suddenly turned cold. though he didn't understand why. His mind couldn't make the jump, much as he wanted it to do so. It was like being a field officer again, trying to discern enemy intentions on an important field assignment, and knowing some, perhaps much, of the necessary information, but not enough to paint the entire picture in his own mind. But the frightening part was that these Project people spoke of human life as the German fascists had once done. But they're only Jews. He looked up at the noise and saw another aircraft landing on the approach road. Behind it in the distance, a number of automobiles were halted off the road/runway, waiting to drive to the building. There were more people in the cafeteria now, he saw, nearly double the number from the previous day. So, Horizon Corporation was bringing its people here. Why? Was this part of the Project? Was it merely the activation of this expensive research facility? The pieces of the puzzle were all before him, Popov knew, but the manner in which they fit was as mysterious as ever.

"Hey, Dmitriy!" Killgore said, as he joined them. "A little sore, maybe?"

"Somewhat," Popov admitted, "but I do not regret it. Could we do it again?"

"Sure. It's part of my morning routine here. Want to join me that way?"

"Yes, thank you, that is very kind."

"Seven A.M., right here, pal," Killgore responded with a smile. "You. too, Kirk?"

"You bet. Tomorrow I have to drive out and get some new boots. Is there a good store around here for outdoors stuff?"

"Half an hour away, U.S. Cavalry outlet. You go east two exits on the interstate," Dr. Killgore advised.

"Great. I want to get 'em before all the new arrivals strip the stores of the good outdoors stuff."

"Makes sense," Killgore thought, then turned. "So, Dmitriy, what's it like being a spy?"

"It is often very frustrating work," Popov replied truthfully. "Wow, this is some facility," Ding observed. The stadium was huge, easily large enough to seat a hundred thousand people. But it would be hot here, damned hot, like being inside a huge concrete wok. Well, there were plenty of concessions in the concourses, and surely there'd be people circulating with Cokes and other cold drinks. And just off the stadium grounds were all manner of pubs for those who preferred beer. The lush grass floor of the stadium bowl was nearly empty at the moment. with just a few groundskeepers manicuring a few parts. Most of the track-and-field events would be here. The oval Tartan track was marked for the various distance and hurdle races, and there were the pits for the jumping events. A monster scoreboard and Jumbotron sat on the far end so that people could see instant replays of the important events and Ding felt himself getting a little excited. He'd never been present for an Olympic competition and he was himself' enough of an athlete to appreciate the degree of dedication and skill that went into this sort of thing. The crazy part was that as good as his own people were, they were a lot the equal of the athletes-most of them little kids, to Ding's way of thinking-who'd be marching in here tomorrow. Even his shooters probably wouldn't win the pistol or rifle events. His men were generalists, trained to do many things, and the Olympic athletes were the ultimate specialists, trained to do a single thing supremely well. It had about as much relevance to life in the real world as a professional baseball game, but it would be a beautiful t ping to watch for all that.

"Yes, we've spent a good deal of money to make it so." Frank Wilkerson agreed.

"Where do you keep your reaction force?" Chavez asked. His host gestured and turned.

"This way."

"Hey, that feels good," Chavez said, entering the fine water fog.

"Yes, it does. It reduces the apparent temperature shout fifteen degrees. I expect a lot of people will be coming here during the competition to cool down, and as you know, we have televisions to allow them to keep current on he goings-on."

"That'll come in handy, Frank. What about the athletes?"

"We have a similar arrangement in their access tunnel and also the main tunnel they will use to march in, but out in the field, they'll just have to sweat."

"God help the marathon runners," Chavez said.

"Quite," Wilkerson agreed. "We will have medical people out there at various points. The extended weather forecast is for clear and hot weather, I'm afraid. But we have ample first-aid kiosks spotted about the various stadia. The velodrome will be another place where it's sorely needed."

"Gatorade," Chavez observed after a second.

"What?"

"It's a sports drink, water and lots of electrolytes to keep you from getting heatstroke."

"Ah, yes, we have something similar here. Salt tablets as well. Buckets of the things."

A few minutes later, they were in the security area. Chavez saw the Australian SAS troops lounging in air-conditioned comfort, their own TVs handy so that they could watch the games-and other sets to keep an eye on choke points. Wilkerson handled the introductions, after which most of the troops came over for a handshake and a "G'day," all delivered with the open friendliness that all Aussies seemed to have. His sergeants started chatting with the Aussie ones, and respect was soon flowing back and forth. The trained men saw themselves in the others, and their international fraternity was an elite one.

The facility was filling rapidly. He'd been alone on the fourth floor the first day, Popov reflected, but not now. At least six of the nearby rooms were occupied, and looking outside he could see that the parking lot was filling up with private cars that had been driven in that day. He figured it was a two- or three-day drive from New York, and so the order to bring people out had been given recently-but where were the moving vans? Did the people intend to live here indefinitely? The hotel building was comfortable for a hotel, but that was not the same as comfort in a place of permanent residence. Those people with small children might quickly go mad with their little ones in such close proximity all the time. He saw a young couple talking with another, and caught part of the conversation as he walked past. They were evidently excited about the wild game they'd seen driving in. Yes, deer and such animals were pretty, Popov thought in mute agreement, but hardly worth so animated a conversation on the subject. Weren't these trained scientists who worked for Horizon Corporation? They spoke like Young Pioneers out of Moscow for the first time, goggling at the wonders of a state farm. Better to see the grand opera house in Vienna or Paris, the former KGB officer thought, as he entered his room. But then he had another thought. These people were all lovers of nature. Perhaps he would examine their interests himself. Weren't there videotapes in his room?… Yes, he found them and slipped one into his VCR, hitting the PLAY button and switching on his TV.

Ah, he saw, the ozone layer, something people in the West seemed remarkably exercised about. Popov thought he would begin to show concern when the Antarctic penguins who lived under the ozone hole started dying of sunburn. But he watched and listened anyway. It turned out that the tape had been produced by some group called Earth First, and the content, he soon saw, was as polemic in content as anything ever produced by the USSR's state run film companies. These people were indeed very exercised about the subject, calling for the end of various industrial chemicals and how would air-conditioning work without them? Give up air-conditioning to save penguins from too much ultraviolet radiation? What was this rubbish? That tape lasted fifty-two minutes by his watch. The next one he selected, produced by the same group, was concerned with dams. It started off by castigating the "environmental criminals" who'd commissioned and built Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. But that was a power dam, wasn't it? Didn't people need electricity? Wasn't the electricity generated by power dams the cleanest there was? Wasn't this very videotape produced in Hollywood using the very electricity that this dam produced? Who were these people-

–and why were their tapes here in his hotel room? Popov wondered. Druids? The word came to him again. Sacrificers of virgins, worshipers of trees-if that, then they'd come to a strange place. There were precious few trees to be seen on the wheat covered plains of western Kansas.

Druids? Worshipers of nature? He let the tape rewind and checked out some of the periodicals and found one published by this Earth First group.

What sort of name was that? Earth First-ahead of what? Its articles screamed in outrage over various insults to the planet. Well, strip mining was an ugly thing, he had to admit. The planet was supposed to be beautiful and appreciated. He enjoyed the sight of a green forest as much as the next man, and the same was true of the purple rock of treeless mountains. If there were a God, then He was a fine artist, but… what was this?

Humankind, the second article said, was a parasitic species on the surface of the planet, destroying rather than nurturing. People had killed off numerous species of animals and plants, and in doing so, people had forfeited their right to be here… he read on into the polemic.

This was errant rubbish, Popov thought. Did a gazelle faced with an attacking lion call for the police or a lawyer to plead his right to be alive? Did a salmon swimming upstream to spawn protest against the jaws of the bear that plucked it from the water and then stripped it apart to feed its own needs? Was a cow the equal of a man? In whose eyes?

It had been a matter of almost religious faith in the Soviet Union that as formidable and as rich as Americans were, they were mad, cultureless, unpredictable people. They were greedy, they stole wealth from others, and they exploited such people for their own selfish gain. He'd learned the falsehood of that propaganda on his first field assignment abroad, but he'd also learned that the Western Europeans, as well, thought Americans to be slightly mad-and if this Earth First group were representative of America, then surely they were right. But Britain had people who spray-painted those who wore fur coats. Mink had a right to live, they said. A mink? It was a well-insulated rodent, a tubular rat with a fine coat of fur. This rodent had a right to be alive? Under whose law?

That very morning they'd objected to his suggestion to kill the - what was it? Prairie dogs, yet another tubular rat, and one whose holes could break the legs of the horses they rode-but what was it they'd said? They- belonged there, and the horses and people did not? Why such solicitude for a rat? The noble animals, the hawks and bears, the deer, and those strange-looking antelope, they were pretty, but rats? He'd had similar talks with Brightling and Henriksen, who also seemed unusually loving of the things that lived and crawled outside. He wondered how they felt about mosquitoes and fire ants.

Was this druidic rubbish the key to his large question?

Popov thought about it, and decided that he needed an education, if only to assure himself that he hadn't entered the employ of a madman… not a madman, only a mass murderer?… That was not a comforting thought at the moment.

"So how was the flight?"

"About what you'd expect, a whole fucking day trapped in a 747," Ding groused over the phone.

"Well, at least it was first class," Clark observed.

"Great, next time you can have the pleasure, John. How're Patsy and JC?" Chavez asked, getting on to the important stuff.

"They're just fine. The grandpa stuff isn't all that bad." Clark could have said that he hadn't changed a single diaper yet. Sandy had seized on the ancillary baby-in-the-house duties with utter ruthlessness, allowing her husband to only hold the little guy. He supposed that such instincts were strong in women, and didn't want to interfere with her self-assumed rice bowl. "He's a cute little guy, Domingo. You done good, kid."

"Gee, thanks, Dad" was the ironic reply from ten thousand miles away. "Patsy?"

"She's doing fine, but not getting a hell of a lot of sleep. JC only sleeps about three hours at a stretch at the moment. But that'll change by the time you get back. Want to talk to her?" John asked next.

"What do you think, Mr. C?"

"Okay, hold on. Patsy!" he called. "It's Domingo."

"Hey, baby," Chavez said in his hotel room.

"How are you, Ding? How was the flight out?"

"Long, but no big deal," he lied. One doesn't show weakness before one's own wife. "They're treating us pretty nice, but it's hot here. I forgot what hot weather is like."

"Will you be there for the opening?"

"Oh, yeah, Pats, we all have security passes, courtesy of the Aussies. How's JC?"

"Wonderful" was the inevitable reply. "He's so beautiful. He doesn't cry much. It's pretty wonderful to have him, y'know?"

"How are you sleeping, baby?"

"Well, I get a few hours here and there. No big deal. Internship was a lot worse."

"Well, let your mom help you out, okay?"

"She does," Patsy assured her husband.

"Okay, I need to talk to your dad again-business stuff. Love ya, baby."

"Love you, too, Ding."

"Domingo, I think you're going to be okay as a son-in-law," the male voice said three seconds later. "I've never seen Patricia smile so much, and I guess that's your doing."

"Gee, thanks, Pop," Chavez replied, checking his U.K. watch. It was just after seven in the morning there, whereas in Sydney it was four in the hot afternoon.

"Okay, how are things there?" Clark asked.

"Good," Chavez told Rainbow Six. "Our point of contact is a short colonel named Frank Wilkerson. Solid troop. His people are pretty good, well trained, confident, nice and loose. Their relationship with the police is excellent. Their reaction plans look good to me-short version, John, they don't need us here any more than they need a few more kangaroos in the outback I flew over this morning."

"So, what the hell, enjoy the games." Bitch as he might, Chavez and his people were getting about ten grand worth of free holiday, Clark thought, and that wasn't exactly a prison sentence.

"It's a waste of our time, John," Chavez told his boss.

"Yeah, well, you never know, do you, Domingo?"

"I suppose," Chavez had to agree. They'd just spent several months proving that you never really knew.

"Your people okay?"

"Yeah, they're treating us pretty nice. Good hotel rooms, close enough to walk to the stadium, but we have official cars for that. So, I guess we're just paid tourists, eh?"

"Yep, like I said, Ding, enjoy the games."

"How's Peter doing?"

"Bouncing back okay, but he'll be out of business for at least a month, more like six weeks. The docs here are okay. Chin's legs are going to be a pain in the ass. Figure two and a half months for him to get back in harness."

"He must be pissed."

"Oh, he is."

"What about our prisoners?"

"Police are interrogating them now," Clark answered. "We're hearing more about this Russian guy, but nothing we can really use yet. The Irish cops are trying to ID the cocaine by manufacturer it's medical quality, from a real drug company. Ten pounds of pure coke. Street value would buy a friggin' airliner. The Garda is worried that it might be the start of a trend, the IRA splinter groups getting into drugs big-time, but that's not our problem."

"This Russian guy-Serov, right?-he's the guy who gave them the intel on us?"

"That's affirmative, Domingo, but where he got it we don't know, and our Irish guests aren't giving us anything more than what we already have-probably all they know. Grady isn't talking at all. And his lawyer's bitching about how we interrogated him in the recovery room."

"Well, isn't that just a case of tough shit?"

"I hear you, Ding," Clark chuckled. It wasn't as though they'd be using the information in a trial. There was even a videotape of Grady's leaving the scene from the BBC news crew that had turned up at Hereford. Sean Grads would be imprisoned for a term defined by "the Queen's pleasure," which meant life plus forever, unless the European Union treaty interfered with it. Timothy O'Neil and the people who'd surrendered with him might get out around the time they turned sixty, Bill Tawney had told him the previous day. "Anything else?"

"Nope, everything's looking good here, John. I'll report in the same time tomorrow."

"Roger that, Domingo."

"Kiss Patsy for me."

"I'll even manage a hug if you want."

"Yeah, thanks, Grandpa," Ding agreed with a smile.

"Bye," he heard, and the line went dead.

"Not a bad time to be away from home, boss," Mike Pierce observed from a few feet away. "The first two weeks can be a real pain in the ass. This way, by the time you get back home, the little guy'll be sleeping four, five hours. Maybe more if you're really lucky," predicted the father of three sons.

"Mike, you see any problems here?"

"Like you told Six, the Aussies have it under control. They look like good people, man. Us bein' here's a waste of time, but what the hell, we get to see the Olympics."

"I suppose so. Any questions?"

"Do we carry?" Pierce asked.

"Pistols only, and casual clothes. Your security pass will take care of that. We pair off, you with me, and George with Homer. We take our tactical radios, too, but that's all."

"Yes, sir. Works for me. How's the jet lag?"

"How's it with you, Mike?"

"Like I been put in a bag and beat with a baseball bat." Pierce grinned. "But it'll be better tomorrow. Shit, I'd hate to think that gutting it through today won't help some tomorrow. Hey, tomorrow morning, we can work out with the Aussies, do our running on the Olympic track. Pretty cool, eh?"

"I like it."

"Yeah, it would be nice to meet up with some of those pussy athletes, see how fast they can run with weapons and body armor." At his best and fully outfitted, Pierce could run a mile in thirty seconds over four minutes, but he'd never broken the four minute mark, even in running shoes and shorts. Louis Loiselle claimed to have done it once, and Chavez believed him. The diminutive Frenchman was the right size for a distance runner. Pierce was too big in height and across the shoulders. A Great Dane rather than a greyhound.

"Be cool, Mike. We have to protect them from the bad guys. That tells us who the best men are," Chavez observed through the jet lag.

"Roge-o, Sir." Pierce would remember that one.

Popov awoke for no particular reason he could see, except that yes, another Gulfstream jet had just landed. He imagined that these were the really important ones for this project thing. The junior ones, or those with families, either drove out or flew commercial. The business jet sat there in the lights, the stairs deployed from their bay in the aircraft, and people walked out to the waiting cars that swiftly drove away from the aircraft and toward the hotel building. Popov wondered who it was, but he was too far:sway to recognize faces. He'd probably see them in the cafeteria in the morning. Dmitriy Arkadeyevich got a drink of water from the bathroom and returned to his bed. This facility was filling up rapidly, though he still didn't know why.

Colonel Wilson Gearing was in his hotel room only a few floors above the Rainbow troops. His large bags were in the closet, and his clothing hung. The maids and other staff who serviced his room hadn't touched anything, merely checked the closet and proceeded to make up the beds and scrub the bathroom. They hadn't checked inside the bags-Gearing had telltales on them to make sure of that-inside one of which was a plastic canister with "Chlorine" painted on it. It was outwardly identical with the one on the fogging system at the Olympic stadium it had, in fact, been purchased from the same company that had installed the fogging system, cleaned out and refilled with the nano-capsules. He also had the tools he Needed to swap one out, and had practiced the skill in Kansas, where an identical installation was to be found. I le could close his eyes and see himself doing it, time and again, to keep the downtime for the fogging system to a minimum. He thought about the contents of the container. Never had so much potential death been so tightly contained. Far more so than in a nuclear device, because unlike one of those, the danger here could replicate it, many times instead of merely detonating once. The way the fogging system worked, it would take about thirty minutes for the nanocapsules to get into the entire fogging system. Both computer models and actual mechanical tests proved that the capsules would get everywhere the pipes, and spray out the fogging nozzles, invisible in the gentle, cooling mist. People walking through the tunnels leading to the stadium proper and in the concourse would breathe it in, an average of two hundred or so nano-capsules in four minutes of breathing, and that was well above the calculated mean lethal dose. The capsules would enter through the lungs, be transported into the blood, and there the capsules would dissolve, releasing the Shiva. The engineered virus strands would travel in the bloodstream of the spectators and the athletes, soon find the liver and kidneys, the organs for which they had the greatest affinity, and begin the slow process of multiplication. All this had been established at Binghamton Lab on the 'normal' test subjects. Then it was just a matter of weeks until the Shiva had multiplied enough to do its work. Along the way, people would pass on the Shiva through kisses and sexual contact, through coughs and sneezes. This, to had been proven at the Binghamton Lab. Starting in about four weeks, people would think themselves mildly ill. Some would see their personal physicians, and be diagnosed as flu victims, told to take aspirin, drink fluids, and rest in front of the TV. They would do this, and feel better-because seeing a doctor usually did that to people-for a day or so. But they would not be getting better. Sooner or later, they'd develop the internal bleeds that Shiva ultimately caused, and then, about five weeks after the initial release of the nano-capsules, some doctor would run an antibody test and be aghast to learn that something like the famous and feared Ebola fever was back. A good epidemiology program might identify the Sydney Olympics as the focal center, but tens of thousands people would have come and gone. This was a perfect avenue for distributing Shiva, something the Project's senior members had determined years before-even before the attempted plague launched by Iran against America, which had predictably failed because the virus hadn't been the right one, and the method of delivery too haphazard. No, this plan was perfection itself. Every nation on earth sent athletes and judges to the Olympic games, and all of them would walk through the cooling fog in this hot stadium, lingering there to shed excess body heat, breathe deeply, and relax in this cool place. Then they'd all return to their homes, from America to Argentina, from Russia to Rwanda, there to spread the Shiva and start the initial panic.

Then came Phase Two. Horizon Corporation would manufacture and distribute the "A" vaccine, turn it out III thousand-liter lots, and send it all over the world by express flights to nations whose public-health-service physicians and nurses would be sure to inject every citizen they could find. Phase Two would finish the job begun with the global panic that was sure to result from Phase One. Four to six weeks after being injected, the "A" recipients would start to become ill. So, three weeks from today, Gearing thought, plus six weeks or so, plus two weeks, plus another six, plus a final two. A total of nineteen weeks, not even half a year, not even a full baseball season, and well over ninety-nine percent of the people on the earth would be dead. And the planet would be saved. No more slaughtering of sheep from a chemical-weapons release. No more extinction of species by thoughtless man. The ozone hole would soon heal itself. Nature would flourish once more. And he'd be there to see it, to enjoy and appreciate it all, along with his friends and colleagues in the Project. They'd save the planet and raise their children to respect it, love it, cherish it. The world would again be green and beautiful.

His feelings were not completely unambiguous. He could look out the windows and see people walking on the streets of Sydney, and it caused him pain to think of what would be happening to all of them. But he'd seen much pain. The sheep at Dugway. The monkeys and pigs and other test animals at Edgewood Arsenal. They, too, felt great pain. They, too, had a right to live, and people had disregarded both self-evident facts. The people down there didn't use shampoo unless it had been tested on the eyes of laboratory rabbits, held stock-still in cruel little cages. there to suffer without words, without expression at all to most people, who didn't understand animals, and cared less about them than they cared for how their burgers were cooked at the local McDonald's. They were helping to destroy the earth because they didn't care. Because they didn't care, they didn't even try to see what was important, and because they didn't appreciate what was important… they would die. They were a species that had endangered itself, and so would reap the whirlwind of its own ignorance. They were not like himself, Gearing thought. They didn't see. And under the cruel but fair laws of Charles Darwin, that left them at a comparative disadvantage. And so, as one animal replaced another, so he and his kind would replace them and theirs. He was only the instrument of natural selection, after all.

The jet lag was mainly gone, Chavez thought. The morning workout had been delicious in its sweat and endorphin-reduced pain, especially the run on the Olympic track. He and Mike Pierce had pushed hard on that, not timing it, but going as hard as they could, and on the run both had looked up at the empty stands and imagined the cheers they'd get had they been trained athletes. Then had cone the showers and the grins, one soldier to another, at what they'd done, then dressing into their casual clothing. their pistols hidden under their shirts, their tactical radios jammed into pockets, and their security passes looped around their necks.

Later, the trumpets had blared, and the team of the first nation in the parade, Greece, marched out the tunnel at the far end, to the thundering cheers of the spectators in their seats, and the Sydney Olympiad had begun. Chavez told himself that as a security officer he was supposed to watch the crowd, but he found that he couldn't, without some specific danger to look at. The proud young athletes marched almost as well as soldiers, as they followed their flags and their judges on the oval track. It must have been a proud moment for them, Ding thought, to represent your homeland before all the other nations of the world.

Each of them would have trained for months and years to earn this honor, to accept the cheers and hope himself to be worthy of the moment. Well, it wasn't the sort of thing you got to do as a field officer of the Central Intelligence Agency, nor a Team-2 commander of Rainbow. This was pure sport, pure competition, and if it didn't really apply to the real world, then what did that hurt? Every event would be a form of activity taken down to its essence and most of them were really military in nature. Running the most important martial skill was the ability to run toward battle or away from it. The javelin-a lance to throw at one's enemies. The shot put and discus-other missile weapons. The pole vault-to get one over a wall and into the enemy camp. The long jump-to get over a hole that the enemy had dug in the battlefield. These were all soldierly skills from antiquity, and the modern Games had gun sports, pistol and rifle, as well. The modern pentathlon was based on the skills needed by a military courier in the late nineteenth century-riding, running. and shooting his way to his destination, to tell his commander what he needed to know in order to command his troops effectively.

These men and women were warriors of a sort, here to win glory for themselves and their flags, to vanquish foes without bloodshed, to win a pure victory on the purest field of honor. That, Chavez thought, was a worthy goal for anyone, but he was too old and unfit to compete here. Unfit? he wondered. Well, not for one his age, and he was probably fitter than some of these people walking on the oval track, but not enough to win a single event. He felt his Beretta pistol under his shirt. That, and his ability to use it, made him fit to defend these kids against any who might wish to harm them, and that, Domingo Chavez decided, would have to do.

"Pretty cool, boss," Pierce observed, watching the Greeks pass where they were standing.

"Yeah, Mike, it sure as hell is.